Spring 2015
Seventeenth Annual
Documentary Film Series
Walls and Bridges
Inaugural Poet Richard Blanco will speak at OCU on April 1.
Sundays, 2:00 p.m.
Kerr McGee Auditorium
Meinders School of Business
NW 27th and Blackwelder
“Be the change you wish to see in the world.” Gandhi
FREE ADMISSION
OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Thatcher Hoffman Smith Endowment Fund

Oklahoma City UniversityCenter for Interpersonal Studies through Film & Literature

Spring 2005 Seventh Annual Documentary Film Series

Sundays, 2:00 PM, Kerr McGee Auditorium, Meinders School of Business

4/3/2005, Devil's Playground, Lucy Walker, USA(2002), 77

Given the choice, how many young people would endure eighteenth century religious strictures when they could indulge in twenty-first century pleasures? Amish youth are given just such a choice. On turning sixteen, they experience Rumspringa, a rite that literally means “running around.” These youth are turned loose to experience the outside world until they can decide whether or not to commit to a lifetime within the community. With this freedom come many conflicting emotions: full-blown teenage mayhem coupled with deep religious roots. Devil’s Playground follows four Amish teenagers through this experience. Unlike one of the Reality TV exploitive fads, director Walker makes the first film to get inside the Amish community, revolutionizing our understanding of this unique American subculture. Winner of many awards, including Best Documentary Grand Prize from the American Film Institute Festival and the Audience Award at the Sarasota Film Festival.
"Devil's Playground is a classic exposition of the choice between freedom and order, between a closed society and an open one.” Martin Scribbs, Canadian
"Lucy Walker neither criticizes, romanticizes nor patronizes her subject." Marcy Dermansky, About.Com
“Haunting, provocative and unexpected.” Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

4/17/2005, Bus 174, Jose Padilha, Brazil(2003), 122

June 12, 2000, is a day that will forever be remembered by the people of Brazil. Early that morning, as the citizens of Rio de Janeiro woke up and made their way to work and school, a dangerous hijacking took place on a bus near the city's historic botanical gardens. A lone gunman, seemingly insane or under the influence of narcotics, held his victims captive as authorities--and television cameras--surrounded the parked bus. Unable to determine his motives or purpose, the authorities stood their ground and tried to talk the hijacker into giving himself up. Meanwhile, the television cameras recorded every second with shocking intimacy, capturing the attention of the entire nation for the duration of the standoff. Based on extensive research and stock footage, interviews and official documents, Bus 174 is the careful investigation of the hijacker, his childhood on the streets, and how he became a bandit.
MPAA Rating: R
"What starts off as a documentary about a hostage crisis in Rio de Janeiro deepens with every passing minute. By the end, you realize you've seen an extraordinary movie, easily one of the best of the year." Desson Thomson, Washington Post
"This is patient filmmaking, trading sensationalism for the rewards of investigation." Wesley Morris, Boston Globe
"Here is a model example of how TV footage and documentary interviews can both reconstruct an event and help us understand it." Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune
"A deceptively straightforward film that has the force of tragedy and the depth of first-rate investigative journalism." A.O. Scott, New York Times

How does a child grow up to become a good person? What values guide youth through the inevitable struggles of becoming an adult? How do parents pass on inner strength to their children? These are the questions Pulitzer Prize-winning author and gifted child psychiatrist Robert Coles explores in his anthropological study of growing up. Coles
has studied children in crisis around the world for forty years. He has examined their concerns in relation to race, poverty, loneliness, and morality. For the first time, he grants access to a filmmaker to record how he studies the lives of eight youth who are struggling to cope with an all too-turbulent world. Each of them must draw upon inner resources to come to terms with such issues as deteriorating families and neighborhoods, alcoholism, affluence, the uncertainties of migrant life, AIDS, racism, and riots.
“A timely, perhaps even timeless, summons to examine the question of moral example and rectitude.” Kirkus Reviews
“Robert Coles has told us more about the diverse and complex lives of children than any other scholar of his generation.” U. S. News & World Report
“Coles blends poetry with science.” Yale Child Study Center
“Robert Coles should be declared a national treasure.” The Washington Post

For Information, contact Dr. Harbour Winn, director, Center for Interpersonal Studies through Film and Literature, at Oklahoma City University.
Phone: (405)-521-5472, E-mail: hwinn@okcu.edu
Fax: (405)-521-5447, Web site: www.okcu.edu/film-lit/
Films are free and open to the public.